


Miles from Matinicus

by yeats



Category: Philadelphia Story (1940)
Genre: Banter, Boats, Dancing, F/M, Multi, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21844627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeats/pseuds/yeats
Summary: "We sailed it down the coast of Maine and back the summer we were married. My, she was yar."
Relationships: C.K. Dexter Haven/Tracy Lord, Macaulay Connor/C.K. Dexter Haven/Tracy Lord
Comments: 22
Kudos: 59
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Miles from Matinicus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tjs_whatnot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjs_whatnot/gifts).



The first night aboard the _True Love_ , they nicked two bottles of champagne from the ballroom of the Bar Harbor Yacht Club and drank them under the winking gaze of the conspiratorial stars. Anchored fifty yards offshore, the barest echoes of the brass band playing on the dock wafted out over the water to where they swayed together on the afterdeck, a sloppy jumble of steps halfway between a waltz and a rhumba. 

The trumpeter gave his last tremulous cry across the water. Tracy hooked her chin over Dexter's shoulder. "He's a little sharp," she said. 

"Aren't we all, these days," Dexter replied.

"Was that you trying for cleverness, husband mine?"

"Lord," Dexter said, "anything but that. Say, do you think we could convince them to keep playing?" 

"Mm," Tracy breathed in, drawing the mingled scent of Dexter's aftershave (vetiver, leather, vanilla, oak), and the sharpness of the sea deep into her lungs. "And how would you propose to do it?"

"There has to be some way to get a message across. Ship-to-shore signal." He took a step back and she tensed as though he was letting go — but it was only to twirl her around. Her skirt flared around her legs like a fishing net cast into the glittering water, hauling up a catch of starlight. "Semaphore. Isn't that how Admiral Nelson did it at Trafalgar?"

"Nelson died at Trafalgar."

"Never give up the ship," Dexter said, pulling her back in and kissing her soundly.

Later, they sprawled out near the bow, passing the last remnants of the bottle back and forth. Dexter lay with his head pillowed in Tracy's lap, humming his satisfaction at each slow pass of her fingers through his hair as he lied about the names of the constellations that swam lazily overhead. 

"Dexter," Tracy said.

"Yes, Red?"

"Do you think we've any right to be this happy?"

Dexter looked up at her. His face is terribly dear to me, she thought. So dear, and so terribly so. "Why shouldn't we be?"

As if knowing she was going to need it, he passed her back the bottle. (She did.)

"Well," she said, taking a sip and letting the bubbles explode along the roof of her mouth like firecrackers. "Do you think we deserve it?"

Dexter looked up at her. "As much as anyone else, I'd say. Why?" he added, propping himself up on one arm so they were eye to eye. "Don't you think so?"

He looked strange and somehow new to her in this light — his eyes wild and warm, the hold of his gel loosened by the lateness of the hour and the steady pass of her fingers. Almost like the little boy she'd known on the Main Line all those years ago — Junius's newest friend, with a head full of schemes every day, absurd, reckless schemes that a young Tracy would have turned up her nose at as childish and puerile, if not for the way he always asked her to join in. 

In all her life, she'd never gotten into as much trouble as that first year that Mr. and Mrs. Haven had plucked the wayward apple of their eye from Phillips Exeter to spend the summers back home — nor as much fun.

And now, look where they were: halfway out into Frenchmen Bay with the moon just peeking up over the starboard horizon, the whole of the country behind them and the vast anticipation of the sea ahead. 

And on her left ring finger, a shining gold-and-diamond band like a brand, marking her as a troublemaker — as his co-conspirator — for the rest of her days. It ought to feel heavier than it did, she thought. (Certainly it cost enough to weigh her down, or so Uncle Willie had told her when he'd first seen it.)

"I don't know what I think, Dex," she murmured, more honest than she'd like to be. "I think it's lovely out here, far lovelier than it ought to be when you look at the world —"

"Then don't look at the world," Dexter said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. He gave her a quicksilver smile, wretchedly charming. "I certainly don't plan on looking at anything but you for as long as I can get away with it."

"And how long do you suppose that will be?" Tracy asked.

"I'm not sure," Dexter said, pulling her into his lap. "Let's find out, shall we?"

* * *

Tracy woke up as the tide changed, the jolt of the current pulling the _True Love_ taut against its anchor tugging her out of a light sleep. Below deck, dawn only made the faintest appearance out the porthole window: the palest pink tint to the rosewood paneling. 

They were tucked in together, bent at all the right places to take advantage of the tight quarters of the cabin. Somehow, they'd once again managed to wind up with Tracey's arms encircling Dexter from behind, his back snug against her front. She couldn't remember falling asleep in this configuration, yet it always seemed to be how she woke up: her nose buried in the nape of Dexter's neck, his hands splayed over hers as if to keep her from leaving. 

He'd brought it up before, more than once. 

"Don't want either of you floating off somewhere without me," as he double checked the grip of the anchor when they docked into the marina for supper last night. 

"They ought to hang our wedding photos up there," looking at the wall commemorating the winners of Bar Harbor's catch-and-release lobster contest. 

"Gotta get in while the going's still good," several hours later, nosing his way between her thighs, marking his path with kisses that seared into her flesh. 

She didn't know what to say, when the winds of his mood shift like that. She'd said a vow; she'd made a commitment. That meant something, didn't it?

When she was a girl, she'd read books about the vestal virgins, about the saints and martyrs — women who'd sworn their lives to something greater than themselves. Sometimes, after swimming in the pool, she'd stand in front of the mirror in one of the bathing cottages with her towel draped over her head like a priestess's robe and stare at herself in the reflection until her eyes went blurry and her vision wavered, pretending she could see something more there.

The boat rocked; a beam of sunlight sliced through the curtain and bounced off the diamond of her ring...a bit on the nose, but she knew how to take a hint.

Pulling him closer, she laid a kiss along the sloping plateau of his shoulder, and closed her eyes again. She'd figure it all out. She'd work it out for the both of them.

* * *

The second first night aboard the _True Love_ , they skip the champagne but keep the dancing: a lazy shuffle across the foredeck, a casual two-step that's less of a dance than an extended embrace.

"Do you know what we should do?" Tracy's golden head dips down to rest on Dexter's shoulder like the sun sinking over the horizon.

"I've got a few ideas, Red. What's yours?" Dexter's fingers splay out across the tenderest part of her lower back, five points of heat warming the fabric and bleeding through. 

"Let's sail to Buenos Aires to visit Junius." 

"Buenos Aires?" Dexter says. "There's a thought. I could teach you how to tango."

"Teach who how to tango?" A voice floats up from the hatch — Tracy watches as Mike unfolds his lanky form from the cramped space below. They'd managed to deck him out in sailing duds before leaving shore, and he makes a proper go of it, with his blue-and-white striped knit shirt and wide-legged trousers. 

Tracy lets herself look; she can tell that Dexter's looking, too. And when Dex squeezes her hand, it's all the warning she needs; she remembers the step: she takes a step back, lets him twirl her across the deck.

Mike doesn't expect it yet, but he's learning — he clasps her around the waist, reels her in like a precious and mysterious creature pulled up from the depths of the sea. "We're sailing to Buenos Aires," she tells him. 

"Oh, yeah?" Mike smiles at her, at them both. "And why stop there? I hear Patagonia is nice this time of year."

Mike, Tracy has realized, is one of those people who's marvelously stubborn until he isn't, delightfully amenable to all sorts of things: a towering statue made of marzipan instead of marble.

"Or even further," Dexter says, his voice quite close — he's come up behind Tracy. She can feel Dexter's hands entwine with Mike's on her shoulder, her waist. 

They seem to enjoy doing that — putting her in the middle. At first she'd worried about what it meant for the three of them, that they always found themselves in this particular configuration. How awful it would be, to spend one's life as an isthmus, a little strip of dirt connecting two great landmasses who'd never otherwise meet.

But she knows Dexter, for better or worse (for richer, for poorer, etc.), and she knows what it looks like when he wants a person. And she's read Mike's latest writing, now that he's quit working for Sidney Kidd: short stories so honest and delicate that they almost read like poetry. She knows who the distinguished gentleman with the silly smile is in them.

So maybe it's as simple as creature comfort, she thinks, as she settles her cheek against Mike's shoulder and leans back to feel Dexter behind her (again, that blend of vetiver, leather, vanilla, oak). Maybe it's easier to accept that this is really happening when they keep her close. They're already sailing out into uncharted waters; why not tighten up the riggings and make sure the ship is yar?

"With the right wind, we could probably pilot her straight to the moon," Tracy says.

Mike's warm laugh rumbles against her chest. "I'm game if you are, old chap."

"I'll set us a course." Dexter's lips brush across the crown of her head.

Tucked between the two of them, Tracy closes her eyes and lets the rocking of the tide nudge her either which way, anchored and secure.

**Author's Note:**

> there’s no way i was ever going to be able to match the sparkling wit of the original, but i tried my best... thank you for requesting one of my favorite movies, and have a very happy holidays!
> 
> massive gratitude to [newredshoes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/newredshoes/) for the canon review and the pizza, [aja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aja/) for the brainstorming help, and the usual yuletide crew for the very necessary cheerleading!


End file.
